Friday, August 04, 2006

This is called the "London Eye," but Tomcat and I call it the "London Eyesore."

It's 443 feet high, 115 feet taller than Westminster Tower ("Big Ben.") It has 32 "capsules," one for each London burrough. Each capsule holds 25 people. It takes about 30 minutes to make a complete revolution.

From the top, and on a clear day, you can see everything for 25 miles around. (Um, how many clear days are there in London, anyway?)

London has some of the most beautiful architecture in the world, most of it centuries old. Then you come across something uber modern like this. The Anglophile soul feels assaulted.

I don't know whether Prince Charles has made specific comments about the Eye, but he has complained in the past about the super-modern structures going up in London, marring the beauty of this magnificent city. There's nothing wrong with modern architecture, per se, but it just looks silly next to say, a Christopher Wren. (Um, for a prince who appreciates beauty, what's he doing married to what's-her-name?)

About Me

OBAMA FACTCHECK

I'm asking you to believe not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington ... I'm asking you to believe in yours. -Barack Obama

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.~ Sir Stephen H. Robertshistorian, 1901-1971

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."